Luckily the doorbell rings, interrupting her objections.
After making sure she’s settled, I rush to the door and let the medics in. They look a little familiar but I can’t place them, not that it matters.
“She’s back here. She’s… decided that she’s not having a baby at the moment and will wait until she can be at the hospital.”
The woman gives me a knowing look and the guy grunts, “Great.”
“Pretty much.”
When we get to our room, she’s on her hands and knees, crawling toward the bedroom door.
“Ash?”
She looks up. “Oh hey! See? I’m on my way. Just maybe help me get up and I’ll be right with you.”
“Medics are here to help,” I tell her.
“Hi there. I’m Ashley.”
“We’ve met,” the woman says, getting on her haunches in front of Ashley. “Sarah, you may not remember me, though.”
Realization dawns and Ashley cries out in a contraction. “Accident.”
“Yes. I helped you at the car accident. Good to see you still have that strong determination we saw from you then.”
“You ready to go to the hospital, babe?” she asks, breathing heavy with her eyes practically bugging straight out of her head. It’s kind of a scary look on her, I gotta admit.
“Maybe we can try something different?” I suggest, looking to Sarah for backup. Luckily, the other medic, this one a man, steps in.
“Ashley, do you remember me?”
“Cart-er.”
The young medic grins. “Yeah. That’s me. I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”
Ashley nods rapidly, her lips puckered when she says, “Mm hmm.”
“Remember how I told you my girlfriend was having a baby, too? She was a little ahead of you.”
She nods and groans long and deep when another contraction hits.
“I was with her in the delivery room, Ashley, and I’ve gotta say, you’re where she was when she started pushing. Would you mind letting us help you out a little bit?”
Once she gets through the contraction, she finally nods, agreeing to their help. We quickly get her undressed from the bottom down. There’s no sense in delaying that any longer at this point and Sarah quickly slides a towel out of our bathroom under her butt.
I sit back, letting Ashley use my body to brace herself against while allowing Carter and Sarah to do their jobs just as I hear more sirens.
“Liberty Police Department!” a man yells, entering my house.
“We’re back here!” I call to him.
Two men in uniform step into the room just in time to see Ashley bear down with a contraction that has to feel like it’s ripping her in two. She’s lying against my knees, my arms stretched out beside her so she can grip my hands tightly. And is it ever tight.
Her lips are pursed and she has sweat pouring out of her. I have no idea how this happened, her about to give birth in our home, but considering that the entire time we’ve known each other has been out of the ordinary, it kind of makes sense.
“Holy crap!” one of them shouts.
The other stands by the door looking a little white before shaking his head and snapping out of it. “So, uh, what do you need from me?”
Sarah rattles off a few things like towels and blankets but the rest of the items she has in her bag. Firemen show up, and all I can think is my house isn’t big enough for this many people. I have no idea why firemen are here, though, in emergency situations, I assume the more the merrier is a general rule of thumb to go by. In this case, I feel a great sense of relief knowing that we have extra hands here to help should anything go south.
Though, I’m not sure how much farther south we can go than having an unplanned home birth.
A contraction starts and she grunts and groans, curling her body into a C and gritting her teeth.
“Good. Okay, Sarah is going to need to check you to see how far you’re dilated.”
“Not to be a smartass, but it looks to me like that’s not necessary,” one of the policeman says, pointing to in between Ashley’s legs.
“We see a head,” Sarah announces.
“What the fuck!” I yell. “The head? Like a baby’s head?”
“Welcome to the party, asshole!” Ashley groans. “I think this is the part where I say this is all your fault.”
Carter and Sarah bark orders at all of us. Who needs to be positioned where, who needs to hold what, who’s supposed to push and count to ten — that job, at least the pushing — belongs to Ashley, of course. But when I count to ten for Ashley and encourage her to push, I find myself holding my breath and doing the same.
After what feels like hours, a million curse words from every single person in the room, blood and bodily fluids I never expected to see in my bedroom, and a lot of shouting, the only sound we hear is…
“It’s a boy!” followed by the absolute sweetest, most perfect sound in the entire world.
“Congratulations, Mom and Dad. You’ve got yourself a healthy baby boy. Ten fingers, ten toes.”
Sarah and Carter make quick work of checking him over and doing their best to complete the child birthing process. Things need to be stitched and cut and sewn up. All things that I would not have paid attention to whether we were in a sterile hospital room surrounded by doctors and nurses or not.
Because I’m too busy staring at my son and whispering to Ashley how amazing she is. How in awe of her I am.
“You just had a home birth,” I remind her unnecessarily. “You’re a total badass.”
She snots through a cry. She seriously looks like she’s been through hell and back, which seems appropriate. “That was really fucking hard,” she admits.
“I imagine it was. You kind of hurt my hand there for a second or two,” I joke.
Sarah places our little bundle of perfection in Ashley’s arms. “We’ll transport you to the hospital. They’re waiting for you.”
“Can’t we just stay here now? Isn’t it all done?”
Sarah smiles. “It’s good to have him checked out by your doctor, and you as well. They can help you manage any pain you’re feeling, too.”
They push her out on the rolling cot the firemen brought in, Carter and Sarah working together with the rest of the emergency crew standing by. “I can’t believe this happened,” Carter says. “Sorry, that’s probably inappropriate but holy hell. When we came upon that accident, I was scared that we wouldn’t…” he trails off, clearing his voice, “anyway, that’s not important. It’s just really good to be here for this. To see that you’re doing all right.”
“We’re more than all right,” Ashley tells him. “We’re doing great. Maybe you two are the reason this happened so quickly. Because I needed to be able to tell you both thank you in person.”
“Just doing our jobs,” Carter mumbles.
“Glad you do them well,” I say. “Thank you. For what you did then and what you did today. All of you.”
The police escort the ambulance to the hospital while the firemen head back to the station. This time they let me ride with Ashley and our son.
As we’re riding, Mr. Trouble Causer himself looks up at me. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Wrinkly olive skin. Scrunched up face.